Share, Collaborate, Engage
Contributed by Elizabeth Alexander, 2014 Goals: To identify audience needs and revise writing accordingly Engage in self-assessment and self-critique for more effective communication with different audiences When to use this: In a unit in which students must revise a piece using a different mode and/or for a different audience Prior Class: Ask students to bring …
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Contributed by Craig Sanders, 2015 Summary: This lesson makes use of the medium of stand-up comedy to help students to understand and rationalize rhetorical argument and its strategies in new ways. By analyzing and demonstrating the rhetorical strategies associated with humor, students build connections with a different mode of discourse and are able to apply …
Contributed by Whittier Strong Summary: Send your class on a rhetorical scavenger hunt in the library! Students research a text by splitting into teams, each assigned a component of the text’s rhetorical situation to investigate. Later, they report their findings to the rest of the class. Detailed Description: How I did it: A week …
Contributed by Natalie Taylor, 2015 Sentence Competition Summary: The class is split into two teams for a semester-long competition to create stronger, more argumentative sentences. Description: Throughout the semester, I collect a number of sentence-level issues that students are having. These issues range from grammatical problems, such as comma splices and subject-verb …
Contributed by Jen Schell In-Class Essay on Michel Foucault’s “Of Other Spaces’ and Joe McGinniss’ Going to Extremes Take the entire class period to formulate an essay around one or more of the following questions. The essay should be approximately three handwritten pages (single spaced) or as long as it takes to adequately answer the …
Contributed by Jen Schell The Museum of the North and Representations of the Sublime Many Alaskan artists–poets, painters, sculptors, photographers–have attempted to capture the sublime in their work. Put more simply, they have tried to represent in an artistic form the special and awe-inspiring qualities of life in Alaska. Other artists prefer …
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Contributed by Jen Schell Analysis of Edmund Burke’s Enquiry Into the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) The selections from Enquiry Into the Sublime and Beautiful that you are about to read are quite difficult. Part of the problem is that you are dealing with a philosophical book written in the eighteenth-century. Another issue is that Burke’s …
Contributed by Jen Schell Alaska and the Frontier/Wilderness, a Research Collage The research assignment for this class is a bit unconventional. Your goal is to create a research collage about Alaska and its status as a frontier/wilderness. What is a collage?Collage is term used to describe a certain kind of abstract art in which …
Evaluating Credibility 1. As a group, we consider things which make an author an authority in their particular field and the context of their subject, publications, research, employment, etc. We choose an author from readings done in the first unit for simplicity. 2. Has the author’s work been peer reviewed? If so, and it’s an …
Entering the Conversation Activity I. In class discussion, we choose a sample “hot’ controversial research topic, such as abortion (easy to demonstrate), and then brainstorm terms to use for searching for sources. Then, we look at common terms that come up during a simple Google search of “abortion.’ Motherhood, person, moral, freedom, murder, etc. …
Learning to recognize, consider, and research Different Rhetorical Situations and Audiences Context activity: recognizing that a conversation is going on For the first unit, we read six authors with varying stances on a particular theme. Students read a pair of authors for each class period, with opposing viewpoints on a particular issue within the …
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Finding Yourself in Maps In the northern hemisphere, maps of the world are always shown with north on top. We take this projection as a given. However, as a planet floating in the middle of the universe, this is only one possible representation. What does this representation value? How is that shown? What does …
Purpose: To look at how context plays an important role in any text. Instructions: Go to a public place. Coffee houses and pubs work particularly well for this assignment. Make sure you bring a notebook and a sturdy pen. Eavesdrop on a conversation near you. Write down as much of what is said as possible. …
Goals: To better understand the nature of analysis and how it pertains to everyday life. In this unit we will be discussing how the media – Disney in particular – perpetuates gender stereotypes and breaks gender stereotypes. This unit will include three short response essays and one final essay. Week 1: Reading: (Due Thursday) “Introduction: …
Is there a clearly stated purpose/objective? Are there effective transitions? How is this idea related to my thesis? How is this idea related to the ideas that come before and after it? Are the introduction and conclusion focused on the main point of the essay? As a reader, can you easily follow the writer’s flow …
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For our final, “Reflection” unit, I decided to pair watching a movie with a low-key writing assignment in my class. I chose Into the Wild because 1) I think it is great 2) Alaskan students generally have a lot to say about it 3) students can relate to the main character, which makes for good …
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As a reviewer, your role is now, in part, an editor and an assistant writer. You want to think about the piece of writing as if you do not know where it is coming from, so think of it as an artifact. As you look at the artifact, think about how it stands on …
1. Sight Station ∙ Look at the following six images by Christoph Niemann. ∙ Can you describe them using visual language? ∙ In what ways is the artist playing with metaphor? Sight Station (1) Name: ____________________________ Date: ______/_______/ 2012 Group # ____ Sight Station ∙ What do you see here? Sound Station ∙ …
Group 1: Discuss the author’s attitude toward the subject or theme. Explain what type of essay it is – argumentative, persuasive, exploratory, narrative, or otherwise. Define what the subject or theme of the essay is. * Try to sum up the subject/theme in one word or one sentence. Cite specific sentences or paragraphs where …
This assignment can be a nice way of practicing “good research.” Students are required to look critically at the research and presentation of a documentary, and will hopefully incorporate those lessons into their own research writing. THE COVE — CRITICAL REVIEW PURPOSE: To provide a critical review of the documentary, “The Cove.’ INSTRUCTIONS: Watch …
This handout is attributed to Philip Koopman, of Carnegie Mellon University. A link to his text can be found here: https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/essays/abstract.html. It is also copied below: Because on-line search databases typically contain only abstracts, it is vital to write a complete but concise description of your work to entice potential readers into …
What I’d like to offer here is an example of how you can take a similar concept–a seemingly silly non-academic topic–and use it in a classroom on a smaller scale. In my class, before launching the zombie project, we spent several class periods working with garden gnome liberation, and my students had the option …
Assignment: Write a 5-7 page researched essay that identifies and explores an important question related to a contemporary social controversy. Your paper should be followed by a Works Cited page in correct MLA style. Purpose: In Unit 1 we looked at contrasting ideas (they Say / I Say) on a given topic from a …
Print Ad Analysis For this exercise, I like to bring in some goofy or bizarre advertisement or PSA For the last few semesters, I have used a PSA from PETA that I found at this URL: https://www.mediapeta.com/peta/Images/Main/Sections/MediaCenter/PrintAds/DiegoLunaHR.pdf Here is a citation: “Diego Luna: Safe Sex.” PETA.org. PETA. n.d. Web. 20 Jun. 2011. I like using …
Bringing the Sentence Workshop (Macro in the Micro) To a New Extreme I used this for my unit on Analysis. It took about 15 minutes. This can be done with student produced sentences, or sentences between texts you wish to compare. For my exercise, I chose Deborah Tannen’s “There is No Unmarked Woman” and Lennard …
Agree/Disagree What part of the essay’s main point do you agree or disagree with? Why do you feel the author is right or wrong in her/his opinions? e.g., “Although the author makes strong points, I do not think the essay is entirely accurate and, in fact, disagree that X is true based on my personal …
PAPER #1: NARRATIVE ESSAY – Fan Fiction REQUIREMENTS: 4-5 pages typed (or more), double-spaced, 12 pt. Times New Roman Font MLA heading and page numbers Rough draft must be edited and signed by a Writing Center tutor. EXPLANATION: For those of you who don’t already know, fan fiction is just what it sounds like: fictional …
Introduction to Observation activity: Use your senses! 1. (10-15 minutes) Choose a short piece of writing that features sensory details. I chose the first chapter of “We the Animals’ by Justin Torres (it’s one of my favorite books!) Read the piece aloud in class. I read the piece to my students so that they could …
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Here is the assignment for the essay I use in my ENGL 111 class. I offer the option for the students to review an album, a movie or a piece of visual art, but as of yet, no student has reviewed any visual art. Mostly students have reviewed movies, with about 20% to 30% reviewing …